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August 21, 1912 ] * THE
adoration of the sun and the utterances of philosophical
platitudes supposed to work marvelous
results in the transformation of the soul.''
That such conditions have not been peculiar
to our own age may be seen from the warning
which the aged Apostle John gave, in his second
epistle, to a beloved woman of his day. He seemed
to fear that her spiritual nature and abounding
hospitality combined to exDoee her to the
danger of imposition.
WORSHIP NOT DEBATE.
Some ministers, happily they are few and far
between, have adopted the custom, especially in
the evening service, of inviting rejoinders or permitting
a free interchange of question and answer
between themselves and those who attend.
Appeal is particularly made to laboring men to
take part in this interchange. It takes but little
thought to see the evil of such a custom, both
in itself and in that to which it leads.
For one thing, it increases and exaggerates the
self consciousness of the man who comes to question.
It unduly enlarges his importance and
smartness in his own eyes. It chiefly attracts
or draws that kind of men, men who do not
come to be informed but to parade their preconceived
notions and to air their stale ideas. It
It opens the way to captious and ill-natured ob
jections. It cultivates a cavilling rather than a
reasonable and inquiring spirit. It both advertises
and crystalizes some forms of skepticism.
Unless the minister be very adroit, it puts him
at a serious disadvantage both as to his off-hand
answers to long-studied and keenly put questions,
and as to the sympathies of the crowd.
In the next place, it tends towards disorder.
Too much freedom from the restraints of a proper
assembly is not conducive to the decorum of
any body of men and women. Sharp, witty, intentionally
tripping questions will be asked,
laughter or even jeering is likely to be provoked,
and the minister and the quiet unnovel truth
are apt to be the sufferers. The audience will
leave with far more hilarity than sober seriousness,
or at best with questionings rather than impressions.
The whole effect will be that of an
ill-organized, crude debating society.
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the way of information. One who has practiced
it for a year or two testified that the questions
put to him have been the same old sound, and
that after some months it was a rare thing for
him to hear anything that had not been met and
answered long before. As a source of information
it thus amounts to little, and the repetitions
plainly show not only that the answers will not
stay "put," but also that it is the same old
stale set of human objections, objections which
spring from the will rather than from the reasoning
of man.
But most of all, the method is entirely out
of keeping with the proper purpose of a religious
service. The church is not a lyceum or a debating
society, but an assembly for worship. God's
favor to it and nresence cannot, be ?aked there
except as its great purpose is worship, not discussion.
Anything that takes the mind and
heart away from that chief end of the religious
gathering is injurious to the worshipper and dishonoring
to God. Just as in feasting, if a man
desire it, let him eat at home and not turn the
lord's Supper into a revel, as the apostle urged
and commanded, so also if a minister or any
aet of cavillers wish to thresh out some of the
old problems "and objections, let them do it, by
all means, as freely and fully as they may choose,
in some conference or debating society, not in
the house of God and in a worshipping assembly.
A lesson may well be taken at this point from
some of'our liturgical brethren. With all that
may be jusrtly said against their over use of form
PRESBYTERIAN OF THE 8C
and ceremony, it should not be forgotten, that
Romanists and Episcopalians always preserve
"decency and order" in their worohip, and hold
up lirmly and consistently the principle that it
is God's house where they are assembled, and
that all the parts of the service shall emphasize
the fact that the people have met for worship
and that even the sermon is a solemn part of
the service, the serious declaration of the King's
will by his accredited messenger. Whoever heard
of an ambassador inviting those to whom he is
sent to debate his message with him!
NORTHFIELD CORRESPONDENCE.
(Continued from page 3.)
He is from Boston, but not a son of one of the
millionaires in that great city, but is working
his way through college, and is now one of the
cooks in this great building, working in the
summer to pay his college bills in the winter.
These are the men who make the world go.
My room-mate, a young Baptist minister
from Brooklyn, was just telling me of Mr.
L). L. Moody, how he was always at home with
hoys, and whether at Yale or other colleges,
or on the road, could attract and win the love
of boys. This minister says when he came here
sixteen years ago with his companions to a
student conference, he nor they had money '
enough to pay for having their baggage or
themselves taken to the depot, and Mr. D. L.
Moody saw them passing, called them, stopped
a wagon, got in himself, took the reins and
drove them as his guests to the railroad station.
There are a number of ministers and others
here who belong to various churches, besides
the Presbyterians, some of whom have already
been referred to. There are Lutherans, Methodists,
Baptists, and some ministers of the Episnnnnl
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Last night on Round Top the rector of a
church in one of our large American cities, in
a very interesting address, told how Moody,
the great evangelist, had found him at a great
meeting in London, laid his hand upon his
head, talked with him, influenced him and
led him to Christ.
There is a venerable and most interesting
brother of Mr. D. L. Moody, the evangelist,
still living here, Mr. Isaiah Moody, perhaps 82
years old, older by several years than his famous
brother. He is a most skilful worker in
mosaic and flne wood work. He showed us a
round table, the top of which had been used
as a tray in sending a birthday cake to his
venerable mother in her old age, and he -has
covered it with the most exquisite designs in
mosaic, and put in the centre a part of the
root of a peach tree that grew from a seed
wmcn ni8 motner dropped from her window.
There is a devout and lovely man of God,
a Lutheran, a physician from Philadelphia,
who is here with his wife and daughters and
a party of friends who are always trying to
brighten other peoples' lives and make them
happy. We were entirely indebted to them
for finding this venerable and most attractive
brother of the evangelist.
This morning we had a lecture on the Greek
of the New Testament by the Rev. A. T. Rob
ertson, Professor of Greek Exegesis in the
Baptist Seminary at Louisville. He took a
part of the Epistle of James. He proved a delightful
teacher, scholarly, modest and most
attractive. These lectures are to be continued.
Dr. Johnston Ross, a native of Scotland, professor
elect in Union Seminary, New York, began
this morning a series of lectures on the
Apostles' Creed. And now at the noon hour,
Mr. Brown, of London, is to address us. He
I
I Oil (969) 11
holds strongly to the Old Gospel, and is a good
expounder of the word of God.
Our first night the electric plant was working
baJly and at diierei.t times the light went
out in the Auditorium. Onoe near the end,
while we were singing a hymn bearing on the
crucifixion the lights went oat and left us in
total darkness, but the music went softly and
strongly and straight on, and there was not a
ripple save that of song that filled the spa
cious building.
They come here in automobiles, as well as
trains. One party came from Danville, Pennsylvania,
a distance of about 450 miles, starting
on Monday and getting here on Friday.
The lirst day they traveled only about 60 miles,
but the second day about 120. One party
came in a machine from Boston, which, by the
way they came, is 115 miles, which they traveled
in five hours. Boston is nearer by a more
direct route.
These meetings here of those of almost every
shade of religious belief seem sweetly to foreshadow
that day when, "they shall dwell together,
one shepherd and one fold," and our
Saviour's prayer shall be answered and they
shall all be one.
Some time ago when one Sunday morning
we were asked to recite the Apostles' Creed at
the Auditorium before the great audience
gathered there, when the words came, "I believe
in the Holy Qhost, the Holy Catholic
Church, the communnion of saints," there
seemed a beautiful exemplification of what
that clause of the Creed seems to teach, "' the
Holy Qhost is the Lord and giver of life," and
He alone makes any one a child of God. Those
who are thus made the children of God by
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ constitute the
Holy Catholic or universal church, and this is
the communion of saints.
The spirit of Northfield is the glory of
Northfield. Beautiful is Northfield with its
mountains near and far and its valley and river,
all so plainly in view. But its greater beauty
that excels all is the breath of the Holy Spirit
that moves the lives of those assembled here
in sweet Christian fellowship. If there be sorrow
it concerns all. If there be sickness or
distress it moves all. If there be need it is
gladly supplied. Great buildings are still going
up. The great Gould Hall, the gift of
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girls has been finished within the year. A
very handsome, elegant office building is now
going up, and Marquand Hall is now being repaired
and enlarged at the cost of about fifty
thousand dollars.
So he being dead, yet speaketh, who wandered
on these hills and through this valley,
a poor boy, until one day he met God, when .
"God who commanded the light to shine out
of darkness shined in his heart to give the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ," and he became
the friend of God, and then the friend of man,
the friend of the friendless, and the helper of
the helpless. And God gave him a vision.
And God made good to him his word when he
said, "Call upon me and I will answer thee
and shew thee great and mighty things which
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The world is wondering and waiting yet to
see all that shall be seen when that prayer is
answered, and from every land shall come the
token of what God can do for and with and
through one man who will yield himself perfectly
and entirely unto the divine will.
I speak as a man of the world to men of the
world; and I say, Search the Scriptures!?John
Quincy Adams.